on the other, he has president obama. he's in the middle and neither side seems to be cutting him a lot of slack. >> narrator: finally, boehner concluded that the negotiations to reach a grand bargain with the white house were going nowhere. >> when i gave the president my bottom line, it was my bottom line. and the white house response was, "well, we don't think we're going to get anywhere. it's a waste of time." at that point i had no choice but to go to some other plan. >> narrator: the president's team doesn't remember it that way. >> we were disappointed, but we were also puzzled that, once again, we were this close to an agreement, and then inexplicably, the speaker decided to leave the negotiating table and try a different strategy. >> growing concerns over how the u.s. markets will react... >> economists have warned that going over the cliff would cause a spike in unemployment... >> narrator: boehner reverted to what he called "plan b." >> house speaker john boehner embraced what he called a plan b tuesday... >> p